Page 40 of Another Chance
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The Roadhouse. Theo remembered this place very well, thank you very much. He’d come here more than a few times.Because while they weren’t technically supposed to let minors in, it had never been the sort of place that was all that picky about following those sorts of rules. As long as no teenagers tried to buy beer, they were pretty much allowed to do what they wanted.
There hadn’t even been very many places to go in town, and Eric had dragged him to this ramshackle building more than once in high school. It looked the same as ever. As in, Theo was pretty sure that it hadn’t been renovated in all that time.
It even smelled the same, like wood, and beer, and the sweat of dancing bodies. But it was the best place in town to grab a room, and since Theo could hardly go stay at his old house, and Eric’s house was even less of an option, this was where he was stuck.
Not that it was so bad. The worst parts were how much he missed Eric, and of course poor little Jupiter, who had to have absolutely no idea what was going on. He sighed softly, remembering that moment, only a few short weeks ago, when he’d walked in and found Jupiter happily napping on Eric’s chest while Eric snored softly.
It had been a few weeks since he’d been kicked out of Eric’s house, and it never got any easier to think about. Theo sighed and looked down into the haze of foam on top of his beer, pensive, moody.
“Hey. You gonna sit and look at it or you gonna drink it?” A familiar voice came from beside him, and Theo frowned and turned to face the pretty brunette waitress, Faith, who had been a pretty enormous source of problems for him.
Not that it was her fault, but he and Faith had stayed out of each other’s way while Theo stayed here. She was staying here, too, working, in part, for room and board, and the joint was too small for him to ignore her completely but he’d certainly done his best.
She had seemed to respect that. Even when she was the only one working, she just took his order, delivered it when ready, and left him otherwise alone. It had worked well that way, so he had no idea why she was changing it up now.
“Drink it, I guess.” There was no reason to be nasty, he supposed. Other than that he was pretty sure that she had won. Eric was hers because Theo had messed up too badly for anything else to happen.
She’d never really done anything to him, though. She’d won fair and square, and while he couldn’t quite make himself hope that she’d be happy with the man that Theo loved, he wasn’t going to be a dick about it. Or not much of one, anyway.
“Look, I know it’s none of my business.” To Theo’s surprise, Faith dropped down into the chair opposite the table that Theo sat at, completely alone. It was getting late on a Wednesday night, and the bar was almost empty. “But when are you going to go talk to Eric?”
Theo frowned, drinking down half of his beer in one long swallow and then wincing. It was warm. How long had he just been sitting there staring at it instead of actually drinking it?
“You’re right,” Theo informed her, raising his eyes to hers and looking right into them. “It is none of your business.”
Though it was a strange thing for her to ask, he realized. He’d been drinking slowly, but steadily, all night, and even through the cloud of beer which had settled in his mind, he knew that it was weird for her to ask her rival, Theo, when he was going to talk to Eric. Wouldn’t it be logical for her to be glad that they were keeping their distance?
“He doesn’t need to talk to this Eric asshole,” another familiar voice said. Liam. The golden-haired man flopped down into a seat by the table and even snagged Theo’s beer mug, and Theo looked at the two people sharing this space with him and wondered just exactly how in the blue hell that had happened?
“Eric’s not an asshole,” Faith and Theo said, at exactly the same time, and even with the grim sense of disconnect Theo was feeling, he couldn’t help but give a short bark of laughter at that.
Theo had never been able to let anyone badmouth Eric, and he never would. No matter what happened between them, he would stick up for the prickly, repressed man with a heart of gold until the day he died.
“Whatever,” Liam waved the defense off and took another sip of Theo’s beer. “Yuck, it’s warm. So when are you coming home, Theo? You have to be pretty close to ready to just turn this whole house thing over to contractors. I mean, enough is enough, right?”
Briefly, Theo eyed the beer and considered snagging it back, but he had probably had enough already. Anyway, as Liam had so considerately pointed out, the beer was warm. So Theo let him have it.
“I bought the house,” Theo admitted, not even sure why he was telling these two people. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but I bought it. It’s mine now. So in answer to your question, Liam, I might not be going back to New York at all.”
“… But …” Liam started, and Theo raised a hand to stop him. He’d been putting this conversation off for too long. Even while he and Liam had both been staying at the same inn, Theo had avoided Liam, and Liam, until now, at least, had let him. Maybe it was just that Liam’s patience had run out, he’d already shown much more of that rare quality than usual, or, more likely, Theo thought, it was simply the fact that Liam had this idea in his head that Theo and Faith were some sort of an item.
Regardless, it was time for this to stop. Theo had tried to be clear before, but he had also tried to save Liam’s feelings. But Liam missing work, hanging out here to try to get something going with Theo again, that was just never going to happen. It was far past time for Liam to know that, no matter how much it hurt him.
“Just stop, Liam. Just go home. You and I broke up, what, two months ago? That’s twice as long as we were dating in the first place.”
“It’s because of her, isn’t it?” Liam’s face had grown pale, but his voice was still strong as he looked accusingly at Faith, his eyes shooting sparks at the poor woman. “You’re leaving me for her.”
Theo shook his head. That was just so ridiculous. He couldn’t even take offense at it. Instead, he looked over at Faith, and she looked at him, and they both just had to shake their head at the question.
“Theo. Go talk to him. Especially if you’re going to stay in town. He hasn’t stopped thinking about you since you left.”
“Since he kicked me out,” Theo corrected. Not that he was bitter or anything. Of course not.
“Right. Whatever. Someone has to end this thing between you.” Faith gave him a stern look and then got up, pointedly grabbing the beer mug from Liam before she walked off, dark hair bouncing, head up proudly. She paused for a moment and then looked over her shoulder, her eyes dark arrows aimed right at Theo’s heart. Or maybe that was her words.
“I’m not dating him,” she admitted. “I won’t try to say that I didn’t want to because we both know that’s bullshit. But I’ve never even kissed him. So get your head out of your ass, man, because Eric is in love with you and if you fuck it up, I swear to god I will kick your ass. And don’t think I can’t do it.”
